We had to get up at 6:30am because the ferry to Phi Phi island left at 8:30am and we needed to get packed up and catch a cab to the dock. I had slept but only for four hours so I was a bit tired. The hostel included breakfast but unfortunately that only consisted of instant coffee, bread and some ruined fruit. We tried to flag down a cab in front of the hostel but none passed by so we asked the front desk to call one for us. They were supposed to show up in ten minutes so after twenty minutes, we were annoyed and panicked about being late. A cab was driving by, so Alyssa flagged it down and we all piled in. As we were about to pull out, the cab that we had called pulled up. He was trying to get us to get into his cab instead, but we had already loaded all of our bags into this cab and had no desire to unload/reload everything. We were already running late so we asked our driver to leave but the other driver kept insisting that we get into his cab. After a few minutes of refusal and us basically screaming at him, we finally left in the original cab and headed to the docks. Once at the dock, we confirmed our tickets and got on board. I can't sit inside the cabin because I get too sea sick without some ventilation, so we headed up to the top deck. Fortunately, we were early so we were able to secure some seats in the shade. It was an hour and a half journey, which was very relaxing and the others were able to sleep a bit.
When it was time for the tour, we all piled into a longboat along with about 15 other people. Jane and I had witnessed our guides drinking copious amounts of rum previous to departure, so we were wondering just how the tour would go. Our guide was actually really annoying and one of those people who thinks he's hilarious when he's anything but. Our first stop was monkey island. When we arrived, there were no monkeys to be seen, so we continued on to an area for cliff jumping. You had to pay extra to cliff jump so we declined, but we had to wait about 45 minutes for everyone else to go. One guy slipped as he was about to jump and did a full accidental flip landing right on his back and head. He was really injured and his whole back was red, torn and bruised up.
We then headed back to monkey island and the monkeys had returned. They were smaller monkeys than I had previously seen and they would come right up to you. Our guide started offering them bottles of water and they would hold onto them and chug them. It made me wonder if they had enough fresh water on the island and was kinda sad. Alyssa had been getting really close to the monkeys until one of them attacked her. You could hear her scream wildly as she ran away from it. Luckily, it didn't bite her and she was unharmed.
We left that part of the island and made a long journey over to Maya Cove. This is the place where the movie "The Beach" was filmed. It was really beautiful although sadly, it was pretty cloudy. We hung out on the beach for an hour and a half, getting pelted by sand with the occasional gust of wind.
When we left the island, we were told we'd be going for a ten minute snorkel in the bay. Since snorkeling was the only reason we'd taken the tour, we were pretty pissed off, especially given that the sun was going down and you could barely see anything anyways. Then the guide said we weren't going to do the night time swim to see the iridescent plankton. I told him that was unacceptable since that was the reason we'd signed up for the tour. He said the water was too rough but I knew that was bullshit. He was drunk since he had continued drinking the entire time he was on the boat and I'm sure he just wanted to get back to shore early so he could party. Thankfully, the guide gave us 45 minutes to swim around during the snorkel. It would have been a really beautiful spot to snorkel if there would have been more light- the coral was nice and there were tons of fish. We watched the sunset from the boat, during which time the boat driver tried to start driving off and forgot to pull up the anchor so one of the ropes got snagged in the motor. Maybe you shouldn't operate a boat while wasted. They were able to fix the boat so we began our trip back.
Taya had gotten really cold from being in the water and the trip back was insane with waves pelting us in the face with water the whole time. I turned around backwards and held my towel between my arms like wings so I could shield all of us from getting so incredibly wet. Turns out, the water was calm enough for us to see the plankton, so we pulled into the cove where they congregate. We had to wait about 30 minutes until it was pitch dark and we could see them. During that time, the people on our sister boat that had been traveling with us began to drink heavily with our guide's encouragement. They pulled out a snorkel bong which they used to do beer relays.
They were getting crazy which was pretty funny to watch but since our guide was wasted too, he was being increasingly rude to us, saying we weren't fun. Since he wasn't paying attention at all, we all just jumped in to check out the plankton on our own. There weren't as many as I'd thought there would be, but when you moved your hands around, you could see little specks of green light in the water. It was pretty cool. After spending about 10 minutes looking at plankton, we headed back to the island.
On our walk back to the hostel, Jane and I picked up a drink bucket, complete with Thai whiskey, coke and some sort of red bull. We had to take showers and get ready so we figured we might as well have a fun drink while we wait. The combination of favors totally masked the whiskey taste and it was delicious. But the time we left for dinner, we had finished the bucket with the entire whiskey bottle in it. Te Tee doesn't drink, so he wasn't quite having as good of a time as we were and when we met up with Alyssa and Taya, they said they could hear us screaming in our room from across the complex.
We went to dinner at a Spanish tapas place that Taya had wanted to try. It was already 10:00pm, so we had been drinking on an empty stomach and I wanted to eat everything on the menu. I ordered some tandoori chicken tacos and nachos to share with the table. Unfortunately, neither of them were very good, but it didn't really matter since I was ravenous and was going to eat it anyways. After dinner, Jane and I debated long and hard about whether to go to a club or not. We wanted to, but we were starting to feel tired after eating dinner and no one else wanted to go out. We decided to head back to the hostel and get a good night sleep which would be the best way to prevent a hangover.
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